A Far Country Free online reading

2008, James Tait Black Memorial Prize, Short-listed

From the best-selling author of The Piano Tuner, a stunning new novel about a young girl’s journey through a vast, unnamed country in search of her brother.

Raised in a remote village on the edge of a sugarcane plantation, 14-year-old Isabel was born with the gift and curse of “seeing farther.” When drought and war grip the backlands, her brother Isaias joins a great exodus to a teeming city in the south. Soon Isabel must follow, forsaking the only home she’s ever known, her sole consolation the thought of being with her brother again. But when she arrives, she discovers that Isaias has disappeared.

Weeks and then months pass, until one day, armed only with her unshakable hope, she descends into the chaos of the city to find him.old with astonishing empathy, and strikingly visual, the story of Isabel’s quest - her dignity and determination, her deeply spiritual world - is a universal tale about the bonds of family and a sister’s love for her brother, about journeys and longing, survival and true heroism.